who you callin' unskilled?
Hawaii senator powerfully denounces John Kelly's claims that immigrants are unskilled
White House Chief of Staff John Kelly's comments about undocumented immigrants haven't gone over well.
Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), who is an immigrant herself, responded to Kelly in a scathing Friday tweet, denouncing his claims that immigrants "don't integrate well" and "don't have skills."
"John Kelly, you don't understand how immigrants have built our country," wrote Hirono. The Hawaii senator was born in Japan, moved to Hawaii, and became a naturalized U.S. citizen when Hawaii became a state in 1959. She took issue with Kelly's comments to NPR, in which he said immigrants don't speak English and are "overwhelmingly rural people" with low levels of education.
While Kelly lamented immigrants' inability to "easily assimilate" into "our modern society," Hirono used her own background to disprove his concerns. Read Kelly's full comments at NPR.